[wordup] more on how to not sleep as much as you should.

[Adam Shand]

So it turns out that there was a moderately information /. thread on
this that I didn't know about when I posted the story:

  http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/04/17/1843251

More interesting was a link to a K5 article on the UberMan schedule
which basically consists of catnapping at regular intervals instead of
sleeping (they say you can train your body to drop straight into REM
sleep and thus get more sleep in 2 hours worth of catnaps a night then
in a normal 8 hour nights sleep).  If I didn't actually enjoy curling up
in bed with Teresa I might be tempted to try it out just to see.

From: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/15/103358/720
More: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=892542

Uberman's sleep schedule (Op-Ed)
Mon Apr 15th, 2002 at 08:28:52 AM PST
By tes

Over the past month, I've managed to convert my sleep cycles to
something called the Uberman's sleep schedule. The end result is that I
am sleeping roughly three hours a day. How did I do it? Is it safe?

Background

The Uberman sleep schedule is a method of organizing your sleeping time
to maximize your REM sleep and minimize your non-REM sleep. The goal of
the sleep cycle is that you are actively in REM sleep within a couple of
minutes of falling asleep and remain in that state until you awaken. I
originally read about the schedule on everything2.

In essence, someone utilizing the Uberman sleep schedule is actively
modifying their sleeping habits so that they can immediately jump from
waking to a few minutes worth of stage 1 sleep straight to stage 5 REM
sleep, as described in this discussion of sleep stages.

It is important to note that there are no studies as to the long-term
physical or physiological impact of this sleep cycle. I really don't
know if this cycle is causing long-term damage to myself or not, and if
this concerns you, I wouldn't attempt the cycle. However, the benefits
are fantastic.

The Uberman's Sleep Schedule

Sleeping Hours

The Uberman's sleep schedule revolves around forcing yourself to rely on
six twenty to thirty minute naps spread throughout the day for your
daily dose of sleep. I stuck to thirty minute naps, currently having
them starting roughly at 2 AM, 6 AM, 10 AM, 2 PM, 6 PM, and 10 PM every
day.

How & Why It Works

Over the course of a normal eight hour sleeping period, your body moves
through a continuous cycle of five distinct sleep stages. Of these,
stage 5 REM sleep has been found to be the part of the cycle that
provides the benefits of sleep for your mind.

Essentially, the trick of the Uberman's sleep schedule is to trick your
mind into entering REM sleep as soon as you drift into a sleeplike
state. Unfortunately, the only real way to do this is through sleep
deprivation of sorts.

Adjusting To This Schedule

Adjusting to this schedule (as you might imagine) will make you feel
like you've put your body and mind through a blender for a few weeks.
Here are some general tips for adjusting that I found to be greatly
helpful.

    * Do the adjustment when you are in complete control of your
schedule. I converted to the cycle during a three week vacation; it
would have been impossible to get through a normal work day while
adjusting to this cycle. I was by and large a zombie.
    * Find a large project to work on while adjusting. If you don't keep
busy, you will revert to a normal sleep cycle. In my first failed
attempt at switching (on vacation more than two years ago), I didn't
have an ongoing project to keep me focused.
    * Use physiological "tricks" to teach your body the cycle. I found
that using a dawn simulation trick worked nicely. Every time I went to
lay down, I set my monitor to wait thirty-two minutes, then begin
running a program that had a strobe effect along with some excessively
loud music. I also used two alarm clocks, and during the day I would
adjust my blinds such that the sun would start shining in my face
roughly a half an hour later. These would force me to become somewhat
conscious for a while, which was all I needed to keep going.
    * Days 3 to 10 are the hardest and least productive. I spent the
adjustment period working on two projects, one involving programming and
another involving writing. At the start of day three, I stored a backup
of these projects because I knew that my thought processes were starting
to become nonsensical and bizarre. For the next week, I continued to
"work" on the projects, but utterly failed to make any sensible progress
(interestingly enough, the fiction I wrote in this period was
entertaining in a Thomas Pynchon meets The Electric Company kind of
way). Don't expect to be hugely useful during the actual forced
adjustment to compressed REM sleep.
    * Convert to a more nutritious diet. I've found that drinking a
great deal of orange and apple juice makes the Uberman schedule easier
to follow, as does eating plenty of vegetables and avoiding fatty foods
like the plague.

You will discover that after day ten or so, you will automatically begin
waking after about thirty minutes. Quite often, I find that when a dream
ends, I just awaken automatically. Although I still use an alarm clock,
I now do my 10 AM, 2 PM, and sometimes 6 PM naps at work on my breaks
without an alarm and have no problem waking up from them, feeling
utterly refreshed.

Benefits

The obvious first benefit is more free time . I currently clock in
between two hours and fifty minutes and three hours and ten minutes of
sleep per twenty four hour period. Compared to my previous sleep cycles
(roughly nine hours a night), I have an incredible amount of time to do
things that I wished I had time to do before I switched.

Although the first benefit is pretty much the only reason you need, I
also found that switching to this cycle makes me feel generally
healthier . As I noted, I started off this "experiment" by switching to
a more healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables. After my body finally
adjusted to the quick batches of REM (about day eight or nine), I began
to feel truly GREAT! I actually feel more energetic at this point than I
did before this started.

Drawbacks

One drawback is that I hit a wall if I stay up for more than about five
hours without a twenty to thirty minute nap. My concentration and energy
seem to vanish in a matter of minutes and I absolutely have to go take a
nap. This can create some problems in social situations, but one can
somewhat shuffle the naps around to adjust for this.

Another drawback is that my appetite is substantially larger and I will
often crave strange things that I don't recall craving in the past. One
great example of this is grape juice; I now drink this regularly, but
before I switched I don't recall ever wanting it. My speculation is that
my body isn't producing enough of some chemical that it would normally
produce in stages 3 and 4 deep sleep.

Other Effects

One particularly noteworthy effect (I consider it a benefit, but others
might consider it a drawback) is that all of my dreams are very intense
and I find myself remembering them as well, down to minute details.
Personally, I don't have any difficulties handling the imagery that my
dreams produce, but many people have difficulties with their dreams in a
normal sleep schedule - if that is the case, Uberman is simply not for
you.

Conclusion

Uberman's sleep schedule is a potentially dangerous way to increase your
waking hours. Although I found success with it to this point, there
still may be physical and psychological dangers that I have not yet met,
and there may be grave difficulties for others attempting the cycle.